[Trlog] bootable USB "thumb drive" for XP

[Dick Frey]

Hi Paul,
That's what I've been trying to sell - having a USB that IS the
drive that boots to DOS. No HDD partitioning needed, all the files
you need are on the USB. I even back up to the USB drive.
TR thinks it is the C: so everything gets put there.I have also 
noticed that because the drive is so fast, I don't need EMM386, 
SMARTDRV, or anything to make TR function smoothly.
The HDD in the XP machine never even wakes up. No moving
parts, so to speak.
I have the thumb drive set up like a normal C: with TR located
in \Log directory and all the contests beneath it. It works great for 
CW. Now I gotta see how to wake up the sound board so I can
do SBDVP.....
So far I've been lucky, but I am in over my head computer-wise.
I gave a pretty good description of what is needed in my first post. 
There are some formatting things that go on when a disk
or drive is made bootable, beyond adding the "sys files" to the 
root. I'm on shaky ground here. If this is really the "Magic Bullet"
for dealing with the XP killing off DOS menace, someone with 
more computer horsepower needs to check my homework.

Dick - K4XU

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: PaulKB8N at aol.com 
  To: trlog at contesting.com 
  Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 6:17 PM
  Subject: Re: [Trlog] bootable USB "thumb drive" for XP


  In a message dated 11/12/2004 9:45:45 PM Central Standard Time, k4xu at bendcable.com writes:
    I took the thumb drive over to WA7AJ's house and stuck it into the USB port
    on his XP laptop. We hooked up a null modem cable from it to my W98 laptop
    and had an instant TR network. This was something we COULD NOT do at FD with
    his computer. I don't have an XP machine at home so I can't check out LPT
    keying or talking to my radio on COM1, but I think it's there. Worth a try.

    This 128MB USB drive came from Costco about a year ago for $39, prices have
    dropped since. You could use other kinds of solid memory but they have to
    appear as boot drive choices in your BIOS !!!

    YMMV. I am no computer guru but this was pretty simple.



  Dick,

  Great work!  By having a bootable memory stick, you basically have a virtual DOS computer that you can transport in your pocket and use on any XP machine.  The advent of USB external hard drives has necessitated a bios that will boot from USB, it even is available on some later Win98 machjines, I believe.

  All the major players, including Best Buy, Circuit City and CompUSA all have the 128mb sticks for $19.95 after rebate this week.  Notably, CompUSA has the 256mb for $29.95 after rebate.

  I'm assuming you are writing the Log.dat, reset.bin and bandmap files directly to the stick.  Do you back up to a floppy, or can that go to the c drive?  BTW, I successfully tested two sticks running as seperate drives on a multiport USB adapter, so you could back up files from one to the other.

  If possible, could you write this up in detail and even share your files?  It would seem that you could zip these files, and they could be downloaded directly to a stick off the internet.  I think this is a breakthrough that could keep the old DOS programs alive (and even enhanced due to the speed of the stick drives) for many years to come.

  Again, thanks for the good work!

  Paul, K5AF

  Paul Schaffenberger
  210-493-6265
  210-213-5914(M)